Sunday, February 24, 2013

When Violence Loses

One tile of 100 or so made by students at Indiana School for the Deaf placed on an archway along the Monon RailTrail just north of 38th Street in Indy.

On Feb. 13, my quiet northwest Indianapolis neighborhood
was all over the news because one of our neighbors was shot at from a car while
out walking his dog along Dandy Trail. One can imagine how that incident,
magnified by broadcast news, struck fear into the hearts of our neighbors and
started minds thinking in paranoid ways.

While the shooting could have been
tragic, it wasn’t. Rex was treated at the hospital and released. Moreover, the
incident was random and beyond anything our neighborhood could have done to
prevent or interrupt it.

I reminded my neighbors that we were as safe that
night as we were the night or day before. I challenged them to rely on our
basic Crime Watch practices and the excellent safety services of our city
government. I encouraged them to keep walking their dogs, keep running along
Dandy Trail, keep bicycling – to not live the fear they were feeling at the
moment. Violence creates far more victims by lives lived in perpetual fear and anger
than those whom it initially wounds. It must be defied and denied this
crippling victory.

On Feb. 15, I saw the most amazing thing in our
neighborhood: Our neighbor who was shot at was again out walking his dog. The
TV crews weren’t there to capture that bit of good news. Likely, they were
chasing down the next ugly story. But this part of the story is worth telling
and sharing because it is about the sanity, courage and confidence of neighbors
in spite of violence.

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John Franklin Hay

John Franklin Hay, M.Div., D.Min., Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. Executive Director - Near East Area Renewal (NEAR) // Adjunct Faculty - Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs (IUPUI) // Pastor, East Tenth United Methodist Church // community and cycling advocate

Twitter @indybikehiker

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